Freddie Hubbard; Jazz Trumpeter's Solos Influential

From 1966 on, he led his own groups and composed several tunes that have become part of the jazz repertoire, including "Little Sunflower," "Red Clay" and "Up Jumped Spring."

"He influenced all the trumpet players that came after him," trumpeter Wynton Marsalis told the Associated Press several months ago. "He has a big sound and a great sense of rhythm and time. . . . His playing is exuberant."

Frederick Dewayne Hubbard was born April 7, 1938, in Indianapolis. He played several brass instruments and took lessons from the first trumpet of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

He lived near guitarist Wes Montgomery and by his mid-teens began dropping by for informal sessions. His earliest influences on trumpet were Chet Baker, Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown, but by his early 20s he had already found his mature style.

"I played a very loose, elastic style of playing," Mr. Hubbard told the Associated Press last June. "I use a lot of slurs, different moves. I advise any young trumpeter not to do what I did, because that style could be hazardous to your health."

In the 1970s, he moved to California and made a series of jazz-rock albums that sold well but damaged his credibility among musicians and critics. Nevertheless, he continued to capture flashes of his early brilliance until 1992, when he developed an infected blister on his upper lip that burst during a concert in Finland.

It never fully healed, and Mr. Hubbard -- who was hampered by excessive drinking and drug use and lost a home to unpaid taxes -- could regain only a shadow of his early form.

"My style of playing hard all the time caught up with me," he told the Boston Herald in 2001. "I overworked and burned myself out."

An early marriage ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife of 35 years, Briggie Hubbard; and a son.